CIM-SDN: A Common Information Model extension for Software-Defined Networking

Abstract

The increase in complexity of computer networks and their services have boosted the development of standardizations, models, and solutions for network management over the years. Lately, the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) defined the Common Information Model (CIM) for describing computational entities and businesses on the Internet. This paper proposes an extension of the CIM for Software-Defined Networking (SDN) by adding new elements (Controllers, Apps, Slices and others) to improve the system management performance. Furthermore, we define a metamodel to help the process of creating and understanding the proposed model. The proposal was validated by creating a script that generates the FlowVisor configuration file using the network model as input and using Object Constraint Language (OCL) to find inconsistencies in the network.